The Broken Window Fallacy is an argument which disregards lost opportunity costs associated with destroying property of others, or the price of externalizing costs onto others.

Like this:

In reverie I dance, enraptured by a world of thoughts
And I wish that I could catch them all, but they fall much like raindrops.
I scurry about with my bucket, hoping to all the raindrops taste.
Then I realize that I'd capture more if I'd stand in just one place.
I cry over the drops uncaught, that teased me but moved on.
I raced to seal in every thought, but half of them are gone.
They're buried now within the dirt - land of subconsciousness.
But like the water soaking earth, they cannot be expressed.
Once they've mingled with the ground, their purity is gone.
My most transcendent thoughts, once found, swift to the earth withdraw.

Like this:

I could see everything going on around me. Life. People. Progress. Accomplishment.

But I was stuck behind bars.

Bars of anxiety, fear, and apprehension.

Bars of depression.

The bars of rejection and failure.

And the bars of chronic illness, and the cognitive and physical struggles stemming from that.

Throughout my life, I’ve felt much like a lioness, walking back and forth in my cage. A creature with restless energy, but no idea where to put it or how to apply it within such limited scope.

Peering Into the Past

I am too malnourished to break through these bars, and the glass wall beyond them.

I silently watch as life – my friends, opportunities, my dreams – go by, wondering if I’ll ever be freed from this cage, yet slowly coming to accept my fate – that I may die here, forgotten, with no contribution or legacy or meaning to leave behind me.

I gradually lose my creativity, coming to instead see these walls as my limitations and boundaries.

Until, at some point or other, I stop looking at the walls.

When I stop focusing on my limitations, I find that there is more within the space that confines me than my eyes could previously see.

I’ve spent so long looking out. Out at a life, a world, relationships, ideas, events, materials, opportunities that I would never touch. Things that would never be available to me – at my disposal to work with or use in my creative process.

I’ve spent so long looking outside the boundaries of this prison and wishing to have or be something I could not – coveting what would always for me be a fantasy – that I’ve lost time I could have spent trying to be resourceful with the air available to me, the nitrogen, the oxygen, the sunlight within my domain.

When I at last stop looking at my boundaries, and instead look within them, I begin to see past them. I see a new dimension that was not evident to me before.

Not a dimension of height, or depth, or breadth. Another dimension, another energy. Something I’m still trying to describe and explain and understand. Perhaps it’s a form of music.

I begin to sing.

I start with a quiet song. One that is only audible to me, and the walls and waves of energy that blanket me.

But as I practice, my voice becomes stronger.

And eventually, it begins to carry.

It carries through the glass.

The vibrations of my voice begin to mildly, subtly disrupt the field of energy around me.

I soon sense the presence of another soul.

At last!

I am not alone.

But…why? Why would anyone in the free world come to visit a captive? A nobody, locked away in prison? How would they find my small offering even mildly relatable or interesting?

At last though, it starts to make sense. I begin to realize that they, too, are in a prison. But just as mine had formerly been invisible to them, so was theirs to me.

Perhaps their prison is one of societal pressures.

Financial instability.

Relationship pain or heartbreak.

A persona they wear, which conceals their true essence from everyone.

A career that they hate.

A different form of chronic illness.

Mental illness.

As they visit me in my prison cell, I begin to feel free, and no longer isolated.

I watch as they, too, begin to sing from the confines of their prison.

Busyness

In addition to my ravenous internal drive for perfection, I’ve also at times struggled with a sense of guilt for not feeling or seeming busier.

Which reminds me of an interesting video I once watched of a presentation by Adam Grant, on the creators of Warby Parker:

They delayed. They “dawdled”. They deliberated. They dreamed.

Then, after all of that, they finally decided and did. After extensive incubation, they executed their plans.

But those plans required a season of awkward appearances and seeming slothfulness to formulate.

To a potential investor such as Adam Grant, these young creators probably seemed, at best, a bit flighty, immature, or disorganized. At worst, they appeared lazy and unmotivated.

A gestational period was required for their ideas and business plan to solidify and transform into the truly intelligent, well-considered, executable strategy that made Warby Parker successful.

Yet to Grant, in the time prior to the launching of their business, these creators didn’t exactly seem “busy” or conscientious enough for entrepreneurs.

However, their minds were busy thinking, gathering data, processing, innovating.

Impressions and Incompletion – Tying Busyness and Perfectionism Together

“The greatest originals are the ones who fail the most, because they’re the ones who try the most. You need a lot of bad ideas in order to get a few good ones.” – Adam Grant

Perfectionism causes us to be critical of our failures and lose the motivation to keep trying, because we’re focusing on what isn’t and what “should” be, rather than leaving the doors of our minds open to what could be.

Busyness prevents us from even allowing ourselves the time to fail or succeed. We don’t have time to come up with rotten ideas or golden ones. We don’t have time to think, because we’re too busy doing what we – and seemingly everyone else – believe we ought to be doing.

Demands upon ourselves or others – for perfection or perpetual busyness – are black holes which can never be satiated. The sense of accomplishment from such efforts will nearly always be missing, and there will always be something more to “perfect” or “do”.

Only when we come to terms with “good enough” – with the concepts of “finished”, “acceptable”, and “adequate” – can we eventually lose our compulsion to strive, and our feelings of restlessness, apprehension, and resentment when everyone else is too weary or overburdened to contribute any more to the “completion” of our never-ending list of objectives and expectations.

Without this acceptance, it is incredibly challenging to live peacefully within or with others. We may frequently default to tearing ourselves and others apart for not contributing more, achieving perfection, or “staying busy”.

Staying busy can give us the feeling that we are accomplishing something. And of course, true productivity does require a certain measure and form of busyness – even if that busyness transpires primarily in one’s mind.

However, to simply be “busy” is not necessarily to be productive, or to be making optimal use of time.

We can be busy cleaning and recleaning every inch and corner of the bathroom sink and counter – terrified that we might have missed a millimeter. We’re staying busy, but not exactly being productive with our time.

We can stay “busy” with lots of activities and events we don’t even care about – engagements that feel like a waste of time but look good or seem socially acceptable. However, if these activities are not serving to hone or engage our abilities, skills, and interests, then they are generally a waste of time. And such engagements can be doubly unproductive – or potentially counterproductive – if you’re an introvert like I am. As introverts, it is imperative that we carve out ample time for reflection and recharging. Without the allowance of sufficient “lazy”, “quiet”, nonsocial/”inactive” (i.e. thinking, rejuvenating) time, it is difficult to be productive at all.

Sometimes, the most productive thing we can do is say “no” to an engagement or activity, and instead use that time to sit back and reflect (and/or read, research, write down our thoughts). It is this activity which allows us to realign ourselves with our values, goals, passion, and creativity. It allows us to make intelligent plans and ensure that our physical busyness and efforts are worthwhile, and not wasted due to insufficient forethought.

Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing. – Thomas A. Edison

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